The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its seventh year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This critically acclaimed series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking...

'Engaging, modern fables with a feminist tang' Sunday TimesDARK, POTENT AND UNCANNY, HAG BURSTS WITH THE UNTOLD STORIES OF OUR ISLES, CAPTURED IN VOICES AS VARIED AS THEY ARE VIVID.Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men....

Another brilliant collection of erotic short stories from Cosmopolitan, the world's best-selling magazine for young women.. In volume 2, you'll meet the woman unsure she can handle her new man's racy fantasies, the girl hoping her salsa teacher is into really dirty dancing, the detective taking surveillance to a whole new level, the shy shop manager having dirty thoughts about her tube-ride crush, and the city girl who's working very hard to please her demanding boss.

**A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR“[A] skillfully crafted gothic mystery . . . Johnson pulls off a great feat in this book.” —Financial Times“It reminded me, in its general refusal to play nice, of early Ian McEwan.” —The New York Times Book Review“Johnson crafts an aching thriller about the dangers of loving too intensely.” —TimeFrom a Booker Prize finalist and international literary star: a blazing portrait of o...

What is it to pursue a goal, to strive for an ideal, to follow a dream?These are the questions explored by The Balvenie in this unique collection compiled by award-winning novelist Alex Preston. The stories – from some of the brightest and most exciting voices writing today – tell of determination, endeavour and perseverance against the odds. They range across wildly different contexts and cultures, from the epic to the intimate, in fiction and non-fiction, illustrating and illumin...

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER PRIZEAn eerie, watery reimagining of the Oedipus myth set on the canals of Oxford, from the author of Fen**The dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a private language of their own invention. Her mother disappeared when Gretel was a teen, abandoning her to foster care, and Grete...

A singular debut that “marks the emergence of a great, stomping, wall-knocking talent” (Kevin Barry)Daisy Johnson’s Fen, set in the fenlands of England, transmutes the flat, uncanny landscape into a rich, brooding atmosphere. From that territory grow stories that blend folklore and restless invention to turn out something entirely new. Amid the marshy paths of the fens, a teenager might starve herself into the shape of an eel. A house might fall in love wi...

Fifteen highly original and darkly unsettling supernatural stories, performed by some of Britain's finest actresses'This is what we know about The Hotel. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Do not go into Room 63. Doors and windows do not stay in the same places. The Hotel listens when you speak. The Hotel watches... We'll be at The Hotel soon.'A place of myths, rumours and secrets, The Hotel looms over the dark Fens, tall and grey in i...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER PRIZEAn eerie, watery reimagining of the Oedipus myth set on the canals of Oxford, from the author of FenThe dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a private language of their own invention. Her mother disappeared when Gretel was a teen, abandoning...

**"Daisy Johnson's best novel in an already spectacular career...Hopeful, tragic, beautiful, captivating, consuming. A remarkable achievement." –Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation“At once quiet and intense, at once devastating and heartening.” –Helen Phillips, author of The NeedFrom the Booker Prize finalist and author of Sisters: a haunting novel about the complexities of motherhood, nested within three generations of women and children sear...

**A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR“[A] skillfully crafted gothic mystery . . . Johnson pulls off a great feat in this book.” —Financial Times“It reminded me, in its general refusal to play nice, of early Ian McEwan.” —The New York Times Book Review“Johnson crafts an aching thriller about the dangers of loving too intensely.” —TimeFrom a Booker Prize finalist and international literary star: a blazing portrait of o...

You've read all three Fifty Shades, got to know Silvia Day and now your -e-reader's crying out for more, more MORE! Meet your new book-crush: Cosmopolitan's first erotic short story collections: Sexy Stories, Volume 1.The world's biggest women's magazine has a long history of publishing fiction. Many of the stories that have appeared in Cosmopolitan have been seriously steamy reads - but the five tantalising tales here are our sexiest yet.Each naughty nugget is sizzling, st...